Almost 500 trains canceled among high-speed, intercity, and regional, 70,000 minutes of delay, chaos in stations and slowdowns until evening, thousands of tourists and commuters stuck on platforms waiting for news. October 2, 2024 was a date to forget for rail transport: a fault in an electrical line during night work on the Rome railway junction split Italy in two, creating huge inconveniences for travelers. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport Matteo Salvini reported that technicians spoke of an error by “a private company that hammered a nail into a cable.”
Read more Ex Ilva, 2,500 collective layoffs begin in subcontractor-induced companies
Ask the Sun
In-depth questions generated by 24Ore AI
The questions are automatically suggested by 24Ore AI
based on the content displayed.
Fine of 1.75 million
In July 2025 the Transport Authority initiated sanction proceedings against Rfi for that “very serious disruption of rail traffic”: the investigation ended with a fine of 1.75 million for the company responsible for managing, maintaining, and developing the national rail infrastructure.
According to the authority led by Nicola Zaccheo, in fact, Rfi “did not adopt suitable measures to ensure the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure, guaranteeing its accessibility and functionality.” The resolution explains that the maximum fine of 2 million euros was reduced by 250,000 euros, “considering the conduct carried out after the violation.”
Read more Italians abroad, with the 2025 citizenship reform fewer Italian newborns in Argentina and …
Rfi’s defense: “No negligence”
For its part, Rfi, heard by the Transport Authority, stated “the contested event is exclusively qualified as an infrastructure fault and, as such, was managed with a series of interventions that allowed the gradual restoration of full infrastructure operability.”
Therefore, “it is not correct to qualify the manager’s conduct as negligent, it is more accurate to qualify the event as a mere fault – caused by an unforeseeable action – which was subsequently managed with interventions that allowed the gradual restoration of the infrastructure, although this fault occurred in a strategic area of the national infrastructure.”
Read more The price of diesel in the USA reaches the record of $5.85 per gallon
